After attar of roses and pan had been
handed round in the usual manner, I went to the summit of the highest
tower in the castle, which commands an extensive view of the country
around.
The castle stands upon the summit of a small hill of syenitic rock.
The elevation of the outer wall is about one hundred feet above the
level of the plain, and the top of the tower on which I stood about
one hundred feet more, as the buildings rise gradually from the sides
to the summit of the hill. The city extends out into the plain to the
east from the foot of the hill on which the castle stands. Around the
city there is a good deal of land, irrigated from four or five tanks
in the neighbourhood, and now under rich wheat crops; and the gardens
are very numerous, and abound in all the fruit and vegetables that
the people most like. Oranges are very abundant and very fine, and
our tents have been actually buried in them and all the other fruits
and vegetables which the kind people of Jhansi have poured in upon
us. The city of Jhansi contains about sixty thousand inhabitants, and
is celebrated for its manufacture of carpets.
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